Friday, February 17, 2017

Trump Triumphs - A Press Conference Like No Other

With the war on Trump and his administration by the press escalating, President Trump decided to give Sean Spicer a pass and handle the next press conference personally. And oh, did he ever.

He did it by doing what he does best - making his case directly to the American people.

The Donald simply eviscerated the press in epic form. The only quarrel I have with the above headline was that Trump didn't rant, not once. He was cool, calm and collected throughout as he made the press jump through his hoops. The media headlines about him being 'unhinged' , 'ranting','angry' and 'unpresidential' are fake news at it's worst. You can see that for yourself below.

Contrary to the endless reports about 'chaos' in his administration, Trump outlined precisely the amount of things accomplished by him and his team in less than five weeks since he took over, and that with his cabinet picks and appointments being deliberately stonewalled by the Democrats.

He challenged the press openly to report more honestly and to be less biased, to have more respect for the American people because, as he put it to the assembled reporters 'nobody believes you anymore.' He actually cited some fake news reports recently put out by the media as examples.

He addressed the most important issue in the General Michael Flynn affair; that while Flynn had been fired because of a trust issue, the real culprits were the people who illegally leaked confidential matters of national security and the press which published them, including Trump's own phone calls with world leaders, something unheard of before. Trump has that being investigated, and rest assured he's going to find out who's responsible.

As an interesting side bar, one thing Barack Hussein Obama did before he left office was to secretly expand the NSA's survellence powers and ability to share them with other government agencies on the sly as the New York Times reported:

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people. (emphasis mine)

Now, guess who one of those agencies is? The Department of Justice, which of course has its own intel branch...and just happened to be filled with Obama appointees led by Sally Yates, who was in command because the Democrats delayed Jeff Session's confirmation as AG on the flimsiest of grounds. It was Sally Yates who turned over the intel on Flynn to the Trump Administration. Did she leak that and other items to the anti-Trump media as that mysterious 'senior official?' I have a feeling we're going to find out.

The presser continued, with Trump addressing questions...again..about his connections with Russia. Aside from a couple of calls with Putin, once when the Russian leader called to congratulate him and a second time after he was inaugurated,there isn't one. And I absolutely loved when he continued his answer by saying 'What if we had a good relationship with Russia? We might not be able to, but why not see what we can negotiate?' He also repeated that he had no intention of revealing strategy to the press beforehand. Smart man, our president.

Best laugh out loud line? CNN's insufferable Jim Acosta sputtered about how Trump's labeling CNN 'fake news' was an attack on journalism and the First Amendment.'

The Donald replied that he was going to drop calling CNN 'fake news' and after a theatrical pause continued "I'm going to change it - to very fake news!"

I unfortunately had a mouthful of coffee when the Donald came out with that exercise in free speech.

Trump also outlined future plans and goals as well as some stories the media hasn't seen fit to reveal...like Trump's attempts to get a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss jobs and the carnage in America's inner cities that have been snubbed. Even individual members like Elijah Cummings won't meet with him. But of course, you'd never see that on CNN.

If any of you were nervous about Trump coping with the attacks on him and his administration fret no more. This was the President Trump we elected, a fighter who gets things done. Just watch.